Georgia football: Time has come for Bulldogs offense to evolve

The Georgia football program was shown the future of college football offenses in the SEC Championship Game against LSU.

Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart served under Nick Saban for nine years. Saban is one of the most stubborn and conservative coaches in college football, or so we thought. There was a time where Saban constantly complained about spread and tempo offenses, now his Crimson Tide runs such and offense. Ed Orgeron also went to such an offseason this season, with spectacular results.

Maybe it’s time for Georgia’s offense to evolve.

Georgia was No. 41 in the nation in passes traveling over 15 yards and they were No. 72 when it came to passes over 25 yards, LSU was No. 1 in both categories. Alabama was also in the top five in both categories.

Smart looks every bit as stubborn as his mentor, and the question on everybody’s mind in Athens is, will Smart make the changes needed to fix this Georgia football offense?

Right after the SEC Championship game, Kirby Smart addressed the criticisms of Georgia’s conservative offense this season, via DawgNation.

"So right now don’t know if we have four wide receivers that are going to be playing in the NFL this time next year. The loss of those wideouts, the vertical threat, it probably hurt our team. That’s my responsibility to replace them. That’s my responsibility to replace them in recruiting. We probably haven’t done a good enough job of that.Now, we had two or three out different games of the year. So we’ve not had a consistent group out there. We went out and got a grad transfer that we thought would help, so, a lot of those things fall on it. People can point at Jake, they can point at Coley, they can point at me, I understand all that. At the end of the day its not about that.It’s about what can we do to win each game individually. Like I said, there’s a lot of plays that they run, that we run. If you go watch the tape closely they run the exact same play we do. What’s the difference? Right now? They’re having more success with it. They got guys that are getting open, one on one, and catching the ball.I don’t know how many drops we had tonight, but I feel like we had to of had five or six that you could say probably should have been caught and we would have been more explosive if that was the case. I don’t mean that in disrespect. When we had really good wideouts we were more explosive. Right now I’m not sure that we have that.One is on the bench for the first half, one is on a wheelchair over there, two or three are in the NFL, they came out early. I mean, that’s just tough."

Seems Kirby thinks the lack of explosive plays for Georgia’s offense is the fault of the wideouts. However, is that the case?

According to SEC StatCat, Georgia’s wide receivers combined for 148 catches on 253 targets for a catch percentage of 58.66. They also amassed 2047 yards, 709 yards after the catch, 17 drops, and 26 explosive plays.

Georgia Bulldogs Football

In 2018, Georgia’s wide receivers combined for 128 catches on 202 targets for a catch percentage of 63.37. They also amassed 1963 yards, 809 yards after the catch, 13 drops, and 27 explosive plays.

It would seem that the production from both groups looks quite similar. Georgia’s 2019 receiving core was targeted 51 more times though, but still, it doesn’t look like the difference in the stats is large enough to say the offensive woes are all on their shoulders. There were a few young guys without much experience, but I can’t say that they held back the offense by themselves.

Perhaps getting them more involved would help the offense out even more. Georgia has always been a run-first, pro-style type of offense, but the college landscape is changing and Georgia needs to change with it. The Dawgs need to take a long hard look at the passing concepts they are using and how they can better help their receivers in the passing game.

Just look at what LSU’s receiving core was able to do in 2018 and what a shift in offensive philosophy did for them in 2019.

According to SEC StatCat, in 2018 LSU’s wide receivers combined for 151 catches on 265 targets for a catch percentage of 56.98. They also amassed 2083 yards, 646 yards after the catch, 23 drops, and 32 explosive plays. Eerily close to what Georgia did this season.

But in 2019, LSU’s wide receivers have combined for 237 catches on 323 targets for a catch percentage of 73.37. They also amassed 3874 yards, 1554 yards after the catch, 22 drops, and 62 explosive plays.

That is a major jump in production. Now, imagine the same thing happening to Georgia’s offense with the likes of George Pickens and Dominick Blaylock.

Some of you may be thinking. “Wouldn’t changing the offense take away from what Georgia is known for, the running game?”

Not at all. LSU changed their offensive philosophy from being a ground and pound run offense to being a wide-open offense over this past offseason and Clyde Edwards-Helaire outrushed D’Andre Swift this year.

Edwards-Helaire had 197 carries for 1290 yards and 16 touchdowns in LSU’s offense this year. Swift had 195 carries for 1216 yards and 7 touchdowns in Georgia’s offense this year. Opening up the passing game doesn’t have to take away from the running game.

It’s clear that if Georgia were to try and bring in a guy like Graham Harrell they could really open up their passing game. This isn’t to suggest the Dawgs go to an air-raid offense. Harrell is just someone who could improve the passing attack and bring it to where it should be.

FanSided 250

Fansided250 Logo

Where does your fandom rank?

See 2019 Rankings

Its time for a change in Athens, and there is no better time than right now. Georgia has one of the best defensive units in the nation, it would be a shame to waste it with this same, generic, vanilla, predictable, outdated offense. Georgia needs to find balance on the offensive side of the ball and stop being so stubborn in their approach. It’s time to evolve.